Chapter 2
2
He’d said no strings. Well. Hell.
This… was definitely a string . Veronica Lake—who went by Ronnie and wanted to clobber her parents for naming her the same thing as a 1940s movie actress without thinking about the consequences of that name—was biting back the panic. Lots of panic. Lots and lots of panic.
This was definitely not good. At all.
This was going to be really bad, actually.
It was hard to miss the two pink lines staring back at her. And what they meant.
Oh, no. This was not good. Her hand dropped to cover her stomach.
Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.
The word just kept repeating, echoing. Taunting her. Reminding her of the one man she didn’t want to think about.
Georgiano Maxwell Hiller the Third. The most popular, the most successful attorney in Value, Texas.
Value, population 800. Where paralegal jobs just did not grow on trees.
But she really did not want to go back to Barrattville. Her parents lived there. Her sister. Ronnie had escaped the first chance she could, with her first two months’ paychecks. She had never really looked back at the town where her baby sister had disappeared years ago.
She might not have a choice right now. Because of this little string.
Ronnie had $1287.45 in her checking account, a stack of bills to pay that was going to gobble that right up, and her temporary job had let her go that morning. And now…two little pink lines.
She so could not afford this.
Her life had just kept getting more complicated since that night.
It had been the anniversary of her sister’s disappearance when she had gotten naked and done the deed with the last man she should have ever let be her first.
She wasn’t even certain she liked the guy who had fathered her child.
She had never quite figured that out. Did she like him, did she not like him? Why did she like him, why did she not like him? George Hiller was the most confounding man on the planet.
Which said a lot, as she had three incredibly confounding big brothers of her own.
George was arrogant and determined to be the one in charge; he was hard-headed and sometimes tuned out what he just didn’t want to hear.
She’d been dealing with the man’s little quirks for two years.
Maybe he was hot in that arrogant kind of way, but…had she not already felt weak that night…
It had been a bad night, and what had happened in court that day hadn’t helped. She’d…seen his face when the ruling came in.
She’d left her keys in the office. Her car had been locked. She’d gone back in. And had just…ended up in his arms. She wasn’t entirely certain what had happened, really.
There had been alcohol on his breath. George never drank. Ever.
Of course, she didn’t know him socially at all. There had always been a barrier between them in that regard. He had been her boss—even if he didn’t always act like it. Maybe he partied every night and seduced stupid paralegals every chance he had? Anything was possible.
Ronnie had basically just worked, gone home to her apartment, visited her parents weekly…and dug into all disappearances of young girls in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma and Louisiana going back thirty years. She’d wanted to at least try to find Celia. So she could look herself in the mirror and know she hadn’t given up on her baby sister. Ronnie never would.
She hadn’t even thought much about finding a man to fall in love with, and build a family of her own with. But that night…he’d been hurt over that ruling. She’d been missing her baby sister.
They’d both been hurting so much.
And she had done the stupidest thing of her life.
Now…her life was never going to be the same. Her hand covered her stomach. “I promise you, little baby, I’m going to be the mother you deserve. I’ll be there for you…always. No matter what. And no one is ever going to hurt you.”
That was a promise she was definitely going to keep. She had been almost sixteen when her mother had basically forgotten Ronnie and Becky existed. When everything about the world had changed, and not for the good, she was old enough to remember how it had been before.
She was going to make sure her baby knew he or she was loved. No matter what. And she was going to have to find a way to take care of them both now.
She had this month’s living expenses in the bank. That was it. She had to find a job. Fast. She didn’t want to commute to Finley Creek—it was forty-five minutes away—but she would if she had to.
Maybe...it was time she thought about moving to the city of sixty thousand. She could just sort of blend in there. Maybe force herself to get out there, meet other people.
Other single mothers. They could do play groups. Be each other’s support systems. That kind of thing.
She’d have Becky, of course, but Becky was only twenty. And there were her brothers—Camden, who went by Cam, was with the FBI. He was in Dallas now. Anthony was in the military, serving his way through med school now. Anthony’s twin Murdoch had joined the TSP four years ago. She was so proud of them all. They were doing okay. They had each other.
She had her brothers and her sister. Even if her parents were withdrawn and reserved. Her baby would have a family.
A family.
Hell. She hadn’t even stopped to consider the Hillers .
George had four brothers and three sisters. Parents who adored them all. They were one of the most well-to-do families in Value. In all of Barratt County, really. Which was saying a lot. There were lots of rich Barratts in Barratt County. Well, Value had the Hillers.
She’d never met any of his brothers—probably never would, either—but she knew they were out there.
She had brothers spread out over the state, parents who did okay financially but not great, and a younger sister still in college. Ronnie had no job, a one-bedroom apartment, and a car that often needed a little extra encouragement to keep going.
If George wanted custody of their baby—he just might get it.
Ronnie fought the panic. She could just…leave…Value. Not even tell him. And to her shame, she thought about doing just that. Of going to Dallas, where Cam was. Telling him exactly what had happened, and that she needed to stay with him for a while. Like…about nineteen years or so, and would he mind being a stand-in daddy when his niece or nephew needed it?
Cam would make her a key that very day. He’d also make a beyond wonderful uncle and daddy someday.
But…she just couldn’t do that. Not yet.
She had to tell George.
She just sat there on her bed, one hand over her rolling stomach, as she came to the resolution.
She had to tell George. As soon as she could.
Like it or not…this was his baby, too. It would kill her if someone took her baby from her and kept him or her away. She’d seen far too intimately what that did to a parent.
There was no way she could do that to George. She just couldn’t.
No matter what happened—she had to tell him the truth.
What happened next…she’d have to figure that out as it happened.
And hope the world didn’t descend into total chaos. George-style.
Damn it, what had she been thinking? Why him?
Couldn’t she have given her virginity to someone else? It would have made life incredibly less complicated.
George Hiller was the last man on earth Ronnie ever should have slept with.
A bit too late for regrets now.
She grabbed her purse. She…had someplace to be now.